Fixing MLB

[greymule]

You even try to say anyone was better than Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron on some lists there are people that act like Barry Bonds or even Sammy Sosa could not match them.

I often experience the opposite. I've routinely heard people claim that Sandy Koufax couldn't deal with today's hitters, that Bob Feller would be just an ordinary pitcher today, that Cobb and Hornsby wouldn't hit .300. And the announcers love to hype "postseason" (rather than World Series) records, simply because with more games, players will naturally rack up higher numbers. I even heard that MLB instructed their announcers not to talk about "a bunch of dead guys." In other words, today's players are all that matter.

It's difficult if not impossible to compare players across eras, but the discussions/arguments will never end. (How do you compare Honus Wagner, who played on rock-strewn fields and whose glove was just a pad of leather, to a guy who plays on a synthetic surface and has a sophisticated ball trap for a glove?) Different ballparks, equipment, quality of fields, shape and distance of fences, use of relief pitchers, modes of travel, use of steroids, type of incentives—and a very different pool of players, too: 60 years ago every kid in America dreamed of being a big league ballplayer. Only three other sports had a nationwide following: college football, horse racing, and boxing. Today even American blacks have apparently lost interest (most in MLB today are from the Caribbean). High schools used to have a hundred kids try out for the baseball team; today, some of those same high schools can't even field a team.

In terms of whether the sport is good or bad, I wouldn't make too much of segregation. Yes, baseball was segregated, but so was the entire nation (in practice, if not by law), certainly until well after World War II, and—let's face it—it still is in many areas of life. Even in the 1970s, at least one MLB team had segregated showers. No signs. No official policy. But everybody knew that's the way it was. So it's not as if in the 1920s and 1930s black players were showing up to try out and being told to go home.